I love to read. It’s an action that informs, entertains, inspires, and connects. I’m happy to report that my oldest son shares this love as well.

During the heat, he and I could happily pass every hour of the day in the cool of our basement moving only from chapter to chapter. My youngest son, however, requires actual physical movement (which brings us all upstairs and into the backyard), but he too is disappointed if we start the week with an empty book bag. We don’t buy the books we read (as that bill would quickly outpace our grocery bill), so it’s off to the public library each and every week. Sometimes these visits are leisurely and include browsing the shelves, long conversations with our favorite librarians, and 30 minutes of game time on the children’s computer stations. Other times, our visit is a mad dash in and out (with the driver behind the wheel parked at the closest curb). Our best bet for getting the books we want (when we want them) is the online library catalog. Easy and free to use, we can use this search engine to find books any day, at any time, from the comfort of our own home.Here are links to two brief videos that will show you how to make this free, online, library service work for you:

I recently read these books with my seven year old and wish I had found them earlier. Little Rabbit finds himself in a variety of situations that seem remarkably well suited for “read-aloud and conversations” with four and five year-old children.

"Why Do You Cry?” explores why we cry and if those falling tears really make you a “baby.”

“Imagine Harry” introduces imaginary friends, the first day of school, and making new friends.

I'm not sure why it's funny to have the characters in a book REALIZE they are in a book -- but it is.My youngest son and I used to read Elephant and Piggie books together - but now he breezes through them alone.This one reminds me of one of my favorite books as a child.It's a character-trapped-in-the-book classic!

These non-fiction narratives are simple in structure and format, with each book focusing on one specific phonic sound.Large pictures and simple sentence structure don't overwhelm an emerging readers and provide an opportunity to discuss the letter/sound "focus."

Mo Willems does it again with his 'Cat the Cat' series for beginning readers!

My young reader has enjoyed these books as they have repetition of sounds, lovable characters, simple drawings, and kind humor. Most days I put my son in charge of the main text, and I take the speech bubbles of all the characters. It's just one more book series that can help him practice, build confidence, and smile!

It can be a tricky task to find reading material for beginning readers. You want to provide books with simple words for decoding, but not so simple that the storyline is boring. You want to have simple pictures to help the reader understand the story, but not so simple that they aren’t interesting to explore with your eyes.

Recently, our family hit upon these lovely Brand New Reader Booksthat fit the bill perfectly. Sitting down with the 'Ethan' series, I found that my son was able to practice the three basic skills for young readers and also get a good giggle from the storyline. Spoiler alert: In "Ethan's Bike" each new picture shows an additional band-aide on the new bike rider.

What are those three skills? 1) The link between letters and sounds. In fancy talk that’s called “Phonics.” In practice, it’s “Sound it out.”

2) Understanding the meaning and flow of the story. Teacher word= “Context Clues.” Mommy words= “Does that make sense?”

3) Understanding how the pictures correspond to the text “Visual Cues” or “Picture Clues” Saying “What is that?” while pointing to the picture.

How does this look in action? (Give or take the adorable toes that bounce to each spoken word.)